The SUN! The SUN!!

That was just said in Tattoo's voice from Fantasy Island!  I ABSOLUTELY don't want to jinx anything by that title, either.  The sun is shining, the snow is melting, and I'm refilling my depleted Vitamin D supplies.  I'm baking bread, washing clothes, and listing things in my eBay shop.  It's truly amazing what a good day of sunshine can do to your mood, especially after the winter we've had.  I'm hoping we're at the end of it, and we don't have any more snow over the next month or so, however, I know there's usually 'winter's last gasp' right around St. Patrick's Day.  Hopefully, the gasp will be little more than a sigh this year. 

Monday was a make up day from all of our snow.  So Charlie and I decided to do some shopping together.  He needed some cat litter and dirt, and I wanted to go Goodwill shopping at the outlet.  So we hopped in his truck, and headed out.  I got some amazing bargains at Goodwill (thank you $.90/lb) that are washed, and ready to be listed.  After a quick lunch, we headed out to Home Depot.  Honestly, I was not looking forward to there, I didn't think they had seeds out yet.  BUT THEY DID!!!  Whoop!! 

So I ended up purchasing some seeds- black beans, zucchini, and jalepenos.  I'm uber excited, because I haven't ever seen black bean seeds outside of a catalog, and I was honestly afraid I was going to have to purchase them from a catalog or the one place I bought seeds from last year that arrived smelling like an ashtray had been packaged in the envelope for a few days prior to mailing.  THAT was gross. 

I still have several items in two different shopping baskets online.  One at Territorial Seed Company, and the other at Burpee.  Between the two of them, we have about $40 worth of additional seeds that I want to order, and make the husband plant. It's kind of a problem, when we only have a tiny tiny garden.  I'm getting very adept at container gardening, to be honest. 

Groceries and the Garden

I went grocery shopping today.  I'm averaging about $60 every two weeks, which isn't quite what I need to be spending to be able to make it a full 2 weeks between grocery trips.  I think I'm needing an extra $40-$50 to be able to make it.  Right now, I'm making 10-12 days, but the last few days before the grocery trip are painful.  Which, if we could go out to dinner 3-4 days every two weeks, that'd be perfect, but alas, we cannot.  And I don't even WANT to go out that often.  I tell Charlie all the time- once a week is perfect.  Which usually is Saturday if we go to Saturday Mass, or Friday night if we don't. 

Most days I wish I could just go to my perfect pantry and pull out my ingredients that I need to make dinner.  Unfortunately, I can't.  I don't have a pantry, and my cabinet space leaves MUCH to be desired.  I honestly hate my kitchen set up, so I have to make the best of a bad situation.  But anyway....moving along- that's another blog post for another day. 

I am wanting to join Costco again.  I've joined in the past, and it's been useful, but I wasn't using it as I should.  Now, we have a little more cash, and even if I go 1 time a month, it'll be worth it for us.  I want to be able to start putting a stockpile up, not just for the future, but for those last 3-4 days every paycheck when I'm making dinner out of 2 eggs and a box of cake mix.  Sometime in February is my goal to rejoin, which is really only either this Friday, or in two weeks.   I think I might just go down there Friday afternoon, and just get everything set up, maybe stop at the Goodwill outlet as well.  I'm not sure, I dislike getting off work at 12:30, and then having to shove all sorts of stuff into 3 hours before Luke gets home from school.